“It's up to Corvette now to raise their game and find the speed, and without a doubt they have. They proved very fast in the LMS championship last weekend in Monza, and I'm sure the works team is very fast as well. It's a different approach this year, and it should be quite interesting.
“Corvette are always going to be the main rivals – it's a great battle that's been going on many years, and it sort of tos-and-fros from either side. I think realistically they are going to be the main team out there to try and beat, and certainly from last year to this year they will have done a lot of development over the winter.
“The difference is obviously that we won at Le Mans last year and as a team we haven't raced the car since. It's all-or-nothing, a one-race championship for us, whereas they've been doing the American Le Mans Series so they're very race-fresh. We've got to get back up-to-speed for the race weekend and make sure we're firing on all twelve cylinders, and that's not just from the drivers' point-of-view but also the engineers, the mechanics, the tyre guys – all these guys have to get back into the groove when we get down to Le Mans.
“The competition in GT1 is very strong, and it's going to be very hard. We've got to really be on the button from the word ‘go'. Look at last year's result – car 009 had the least amount of time in the pits of any of the starters, none of the drivers made a mistake on the circuit and we all did quick lap times all the way through the race, and we still only won by three minutes. If we make one single mistake then it's going to be a problem.”
In a race that has developed into something more akin to a 24-hour sprint than a mere test of endurance in recent years, focus and 100 per cent concentration will be key, but having triumphed at La Sarthe once, Turner is now hungry for a repeat success. Winning in 2008 would be even more meaningful, he added, because of the symbolism of Aston Martin teaming up with another world-famous brand for the event – Gulf Oil.
![The celebrated Gulf livery on Aston Martin Racing's 2008-spec Le Mans 24 Hours GT1 car [pic credit: Aston Martin Racing]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/433696.jpg)
